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This Is Why APC Is Afraid Of Atiku

Fabiyi
Oladimeji is the former chief accountant at Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
headquarters. He is also the national president, Turaki Vanguard and Deputy
Director, Contact and Mobilisation of Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign
Organisation.

He
speaks on how the present administration has failed and urged Nigerians to
speak with a loud voice and vote out Buhari next year.

Former
Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has contested for the presidency on several
occasions. Why do you think he really wants to be president?

If
there is something you can’t take from a man, it’s their passion for something.
I ask, why do people change jobs? Why do you feel you have to be working?
Simply because you want to live a better life, live well. So you cannot really
take it away from him. Atiku is very passionate about Nigeria.

At
some point, they said this country has done a lot for him. He was an orphan at
14. No father, no mother and then he went to school through scholarship of
those days in the northern region. The country gave him a lot. He studied law,
diploma level at ABU. He went to the modern elementary schools and he went into
customs.

He
was recruited by the Nigerian Police and posted to customs service. He rose to
the level of the deputy comptroller of customs. He believes this country has
done alotforhimandhehastogivebacktothe country. For him and those of us that
are close to him, it’s not about desperation, but about patriotism and passion
to help the country move forward.

Money
allegedly changed hands in the primary election in Port Harcourt and it trended
in the social media that Atiku doled out dollars to secure that position. Is
that correct?

Before
I go into the details of that, where on earth do you have politics without
money? Even in America, Britain, there is a way they play it and money plays a
vital role. Who does not spend money? I’m just surprised the way the opposition
weretalking about it. Can they clearly come out and say they didn’t spend money
during their primary election?

There
are some logistic requirements that you have to spend money on. You have to
spend money on media, transporting your people from their place to the venue of
the convention. You would have to take care of their accommodation, feeding and
welfare generally. That was the money and you can’t run away from that as an
aspirant.

Not
Money to buy delegates?

No.
I don’t know where that is coming from. We knew when that happened. We
experienced that in 2014 during the APC primaries. I was a key player and I
knew what happened there, but this PDP convention, let me tell you two things
that played out here: Nigerians and the PDP members understood the fact that
they have to get it right and by getting it right means there must be a level
playing field. They must be able to choose right and ahead of time, they saw
Atiku as somebody that has the capacity, the will to take up this challenge.

So
it was so easy for them when they got to the convention ground to freely choose
their preferred candidate and that was exactly what they did. Who didn’t spend
money, Tambuwal spent money to bring his delegates to that place, Saraki spent
money, and so did Atiku. But these are logistics requirements that you need to
put in place to make sure that your delegates who are going to vote for you are
comfortable and are well taken care of.

Why
do you think former President Obasanjo have such disdain for Atiku?

Human
beings cannot always agree at every point in time. I guess that’s what has been
playing out between Atiku and Obasanjo. I wouldn’t know if there is any problem
because I have asked Atiku, he said as far as he’s concerned, he has not done
anything wrong and he doesn’t have problem with the former president.

So
maybe the former President had problem with him and he expects that even if
that happens, as men that have worked together before, they should be able to
trash out that. Beyond that, I think the way Nigeria is going now, everybody
has to come together to rescue this nation. We must be united to ensure that
this country is rescued at this point in time. It’s so bad that we are not
united. It’s so bad that we are not united and having a lot of challenges due
to the failure and incapacity of the present administration. Everybody has to
come together now, so I am expecting that to happen because former President
Obasanjo loves this country and can do anything to make sure this country
succeeds.

People
seem to have turned Obasanjo to a tin god. You cannot be president without
going to Obasanjo. Why won’t Atiku leave Obasanjo alone?

In
every country, we have people that are referred to as establishment. We have
them in the US. The Kennedys, Clintons. We have them too in Nigeria and
Obasanjo is an establishment in this country. People may not want to agree with
me, but it is the fact.

If
you want to be Nigeria’s President, you have every reason to go on
consultation. He’s a former president. Two time former president, head of state
and military. You need to consult people like that; if not for anything, their
guidance, wisdom or for support and President Buhari did the same thing despite
their differences. You would agree with me that they had their differences;
they were never friends, but when it was time for him to go, he went there to
visit. I don’t see anything wrong with that. In addition to that, he was his
former boss. When you listen to his acceptance speech, he paid tribute to
Obasanjo because if not for this man, probably I wouldn’t have gotten here.
Atiku wanted to be governor and Obasanjo said come up and made him Vice
President, placed him on that national and global map. He owes Obasanjo that;
apart from that, they are both my leaders.

How
long have you known Atiku?

My
first contact with him was in 2001, then I had already resumed as the chief
accountant at the headquarters of the party and I remember him as one of those
leaders that always listen to us as a party, when we have issues we go to him,
he will advice, guide and say let it go this way. There was a very cordial
relationship between him and his boss at that time.

I
started picking interest in him because two things were very dear to his heart
and I discovered those early. It was his passion about youth development and
development of the country generally. You could see that during his time as the
Vice President. Then he had this ability to identify talent. The very first day
he saw me, he said you are a leader in the making. I don’t know where that came
from but that was the first thing he told me and since then we have had this
relationship, he encourages me and gives assignments that challenges me.

I
got to this point today because of things like that. You feel you cannot do it
but by the time you get there, you’ll work extra hard and he’s a man who is
always result oriented. So when you come back and you perform, he will
encourage you to do more even if you didn’t really measure up.

I
am proud to be supporting Atiku; he has been a wonderful mentor to me and to
some of us who have been around him. He listens to you even when you have a
contrary view, he won’t shout, instead he listens. He told me one day that if
‘I cannot learn from you whether you are my age mate, older or younger than me,
then, you have no business around me if you can’t up your game.’

We
hear that Atiku was involved in some criminal cases in the US. How true? Can he
visit United States?

This
question has been coming up several times and my view is why Atiku can’t visit
America? There is a treaty that exists between the Nigerian and American
government. If Atiku is wanted in America, because of this bilateral treaty
between both countries, Atiku would have been arrested.

Apart
from that, a request was sent to the US department of state on whether there
was a criminal case against Atiku Abubakar and they said ‘we have no criminal
record or case against Atiku.’ Again, if Atiku is afraid of going to the United
States, would he have applied for visa on three occasions? Somebody who is
afraid of getting arrested won’t apply.

Remember
Atiku was with Buhari, what is Atiku bringing that Buhari has not brought to
Nigeria?

It
was full of deceit. It was later we realised that they were deceiving
Nigerians. They don’t even have blueprints. They don’t have capacity. This
present government has shown that they lack the capacity to fix this country.
If you are in a position of power, you are meant to fix things. At that time,
they reached out to Atiku to support them with his own economic blueprint, which
he did. But because of internal politics, they could not do much with it. The
fear of Atiku is the beginning of political wisdom in Nigeria. Atiku has no
problem with the grassroots of this country, it’s just few elites that always
conspire so that he won’t get there and to God be the glory, that hurdle has
been crossed.

So
they reached out and he did, but in their caucus there, those referred to as
the cabals went to meet President and said if you implement Atiku’s economic
blueprint, he’s going to get more money to fight you. They tried to crumble the
man’s economy. Who told them that when they do that Atiku wouldn’t be able to
finance his election?

How
much did President Buhari have when he was running? God brought people like
Atiku to come and support him financially. He came out and said he doesn’t even
have money to buy forms. Now Atiku is coming to fix the economy. He will do
those things they don’t have the capacity to do, and he has come up with a four
point agenda which is called Jobs and Employment Opportunities for the younger
generation to excel, Being United and Security (JOBS) and in addition to that,
he talked about restructuring.

Federal
Government has no business in agriculture, transportation even education. So
just stay with foreign affairs, financial regulations, defence. This is what
Atiku is talking about; he knows what it is even as number two when he was Vice
President. Another four years of hardship, senseless killings, economic
downturn, and poverty would not go well for this country. That is why God has
listened to the prayers of Nigerians and gave us Atiku in the PDP.

It would seem from available accounts that the earliest form of Western-style
health care in Nigeria was provided by doctors brought by explorers and traders
to cater for their own well being.[2] The services were not available to the
indigenes.